


Bait

by worldturtling



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Arguing, Communication, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-04
Updated: 2014-11-04
Packaged: 2018-02-24 02:37:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2565200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/worldturtling/pseuds/worldturtling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Benny is uncomfortable with the amount of times Dean is the lure, and what’s worse that it’s by his own plans.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bait

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt "first fight" for Dean/Benny week.

 

Benny’s got his hand on Dean’s jaw, and though usually Dean would flinch away from the suddenness of the cool skin, it’s a welcome cooling effect to the swelling, which is something Benny well knows.

 

What’s worse is he can’t not meet Benny’s eyes, eyes that were currently in the process of scrutinizing him. He can’t tell if it’s better than the look Benny had on his face when he first laid eyes on him.

 

“Werewolves are rough, at least I didn’t get bit,” Dean grins, but it hurts his jaw. Benny’s mouth twitches down when Dean winces.

  
“Were you in the line of fire to get bit?”

 

Dean can’t look away from Benny’s face, close enough to see if Benny was smiling at him or not, (he wasn’t) close enough to see parts of uneven trimming, some singular hairs just barely a centimeter longer than others. For all of Benny’s careful against the grain trims after his morning showers, some still got away.

 

He shrugs, tries to move his face along with it, and Benny’s hand flows with the movement, never pressing harder against the scabbing and the purple-red skin and the swollen lump that was his cheek.

 

“Just part of the plan.”

 

“You know I’ve been around along time and I ain’t never seen anyone get dangled on a hook so often as you.”

 

“I’ll get back to looking pretty in no time,” Dean shrugs, fidgeting under Benny’s gaze uncomfortably.

 

Benny closes his eyes briefly like he was asking for something from god. Dean would have found the humor in the irony had that not been a clear sign of annoyance beginning to set in. Something like a tiredness.

 

Dean slow jerks away, tries to not make the movement appear to sudden. Benny’s eyes flash open and watch Dean’s hips sway to the side, out of grasp. Benny could follow, but he doesn’t.

 

“I’m gonna shower, get some of this dirt off me.” Dean starts to walk away, turns from Benny completely.

 

“I think I might take a walk to the store. Want me to pick you up anything?”

 

“No,” he says, and hurries into the adjoined bathroom to his room. He doesn’t bother to lock the door, Benny would get the message enough when he closed it.

-

 

When he gets out of the shower, Benny is nowhere to be seen. His wallet is missing from the bedside table,  which is to be expected.

 

Dean towels off and turns to the dresser to look for a pair of underwear. A piece of shiny cobalt black catches his eye. Benny’s phone was usually next to his wallet. Now it was on the dresser, alone. Left behind.

 

If Benny wanted to judge him for how he hunts- for what works, then fine. At least Dean is getting results.

 

He leaves the room and finds  an icepack for his face in the form of ground turkey. It’s fairly late. Sam probably already dropped off to sleep. Dean thinks it’d be a while before any store even opened. How far was Benny planning to walk?

 

Even he is beginning to feel weary and muscle sore from the events earlier that night. The mouth of the werewolf had been an inch away from his collarbone, claw digging into his leather jacket. That had been after it had tossed him against the side of a dumpster.

 

It gave Sam enough time to find his gun and shoot.

 

It gave Dean enough time to imagine the creature going to purgatory, and Dean with him. It was a cooling realization he might have to go back, this time with no optional escape.

 

Every ounce of pain dragged from his shoulder and tailbone and head fueled more resentment for the idea of being looked down on for what he does.

 

He lays in bed with the cold ground turkey pressed to his face. It’s already 4am. Benny probably won’t show up till dawn or maybe not at all, and frankly Dean doesn’t care at this point. His legs find their way to spreading under the sheets and taking his body to a diagonal angle across the bed.

 

His head is pounding, but fuming with imagined accusations, righteous defenses. He works himself up and doesn’t remember falling asleep at all until he feels the cold condensation of thawed ground turkey dripping into his shut eye.

 

And the feeling of its weight being moved, replaced with a towel. Sleep still drags him away from opening his eyes, but the towel is removed shortly after a few moments. In the moment, he forgets himself, and scoots over to make room for Benny, wants to turn to lean into him except his bruised waist cries out and Dean makes a pained moan that breaks him from sleep.

 

Benny shushes him, gets a cool hand under his shirt and slides it up and down his side slowly while he crawls into bed alongside Dean.

 

“Sam’s doesn’t always look this beat up after a hunt was all I meant,’ Benny starts murmuring, as if he were saying something gentle and sweet and not something that would awaken Dean’s defenses.

 

“Because that’s not how we work,” Dean says, voice started into use and cracking.

 

“You telling me an old dog can’t learn new tricks?”

 

“Oh so I’m a dog now?”

 

“I’m saying you’re human and you should maybe act like it.” For all that his voice sounds clipped and short, his hand never moves harder on his skin.

 

Dean feels his mouth twist in an ugly smile.

 

“Really?”

 

“What,” Benny says, but it’s not a question, though his voice hangs at the end of the word, like it’s waiting to drop.

 

“You’re really gonna tell me to act like my species? You drink coffee and eat my jerkey and pretend you’re human every day.”

 

Benny’s hand stops right over his hip.

 

“Sorry, I’ll remember to only keep drinking blood in front of you and your brother from now on, I know how much more normal that feels to you two.”

 

“I’m just saying that we all do what works for us, okay.”

 

“Dean, I used to kill innocent people for a living and I’ve never seen anybody get as torn up on the other end of a monster’s hand as you get on a weekly basis. If you want me to stop caring about you, that’s not happening. But this,” he slides his hand up and brushes the bruise over his rib lightly enough to not cause pain, “and this,” his hand falls away from under Dean’s shirt and a thumb grazes over the side of his face, making Dean wince not from pain but from being displayed like evidence to himself in a strangely clinical and disembodying way, “are not normal. They’re not okay. You need to know that. I need to know that you know that.”

 

Dean wishes he could come back with something like, haven’t died yet, hates how much of a lie that is in his mouth.

 

“Or do you just have some sort of death wish,” Benny’s voice sounds out after a long silence. It’s a low croak behind Dean’s ear, and Dean feels trapped by the bedhseets.

 

“Benny,” Dean scoffs, wanting to roll his eyes and close his eyes and pretend he never woke up. “Don’t… go there. We’re not going there.”

 

“Then where are we going,” Benny’s voice is softer, coaxing.

 

“It’s how I was raised, okay.” It’s a hollowed out answer. Benny’s response is to greet it with silence, waiting for Dean to keep going. “It doesn’t work another way. I don’t like the pain if that’s what you’re thinking, okay.”

 

“I’m not thinking that. It just scares me. You scare me when you come back sometimes, you know?”

 

“That’s part of the deal you get when you’re with a hunter, Benny. You know that.”

 

“Because all you are is a hunter and all I am is a monster?”

 

Dean doesn’t respond  to that, but there wasn’t any heat behind the words.

 

“I’m not saying  it’s okay.”  Does that sound like enough of an admission? Does Benny need to know more than that? It’s already too much. He feels raw in his own bed.

 

“Okay. Cm’here.’ Benny’s got his big calloused hand soft on his face, and despite his words, it’s Benny shifting up closer behind him, although Dean does feel tension leave his shoulders, conversation finally being left behind.

 

He feels a little sick, hates the thoughts winding up awake in his head now that Benny feels done with the conversation. Dean’s mind isn’t done with it, and he feels himself hating Benny for it a little even as he angles his face for Benny’s hand to comfortably cover more of it.

 

“I care about you,” Benny says into the back of his head. “I wanna keep you around for a while before you go.”

 

“Where would I go, Benny?”

“You know where.”

 

Dean wishes he did.

 

 


End file.
